TBB - Swedish Apricot Walnut Bread

I was excited about baking a yeast recipe this week. The Swedish Apricot Walnut Bread needed a few tweaks to suit my taste and allergies, but turned out great in the end!

I loved the soft, light and airy crumb of this bread. The sweetness from the dried fruit was just the right amount!

ABC - Orange, Date & Almond Biscotti

I love biscotti and lucky for us, so does Christina Marsigliese. Her blog, Scientifically Sweet, contains many biscotti recipes. The one that caught my eye immediately was the Orange, Date & Almond Biscotti, probably because my favorite biscotti is one that a close friend shared with me, many years ago. It's a Cranberry, Almond and Anise Seed biscotti.

Delicious cup-a-tea with a biscotti. Notice the scalloped top. I explain later how I did that :o)

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.

TBB - English Dried Fruit Cake

This is my inaugural recipe for a new bake along called Rose's Alpha Bakers. We will be baking our way through The Baking Bible by the queen of baking, Rose Levy Beranbaum. I had the honor and pleasure to be one of the recipe testers for the book. Rose was kind enough to mention us by name in the acknowledgement section of her book, which is totally awesome!!!

Unfortunately I missed last week's official inaugural recipe which was the Kouign Amann. You can read all about the other bakers' adventures in Marie's round-up post. But I won't let that spoil the fun for this week's English Dried Fruit Cake. I don't recall ever eating fruit cake. It's usually too dense for my liking or doused with some sort of alcohol. And since not a lot of people speak kindly of said cake, I didn't miss eating it or bother baking it.

And then Rose developed this fruit cake recipe. I was immediately intrigued by the unusual batter preparation technique which has you cook some of the ingredients on the stove.

Does that look like wet sand?

One bonus: no mixer required. Everything is done by hand. It's also easy and quick to make. I was heating up leftovers for dinner while whipping up the batter for this cake. One more thing... Even with all my substitutions and not using any of the recommended cake pans, it turned out awesome!

English Dried Fruit cake baked in my new vintage Bundt pan :o)

ABC - Tuscan Coffeecake

Two mini Tuscan Coffeecakes

What's a Tuscan Coffeecake, you ask? This fruit and nut studded coffeecake/bread really stood out when I was looking for a King Arthur Flour recipe for our ABC February challenge. Although I don't have European-style flour (and assumed that most of you wouldn't), the recipe says that you can use all purpose flour as well, so it was a GO :) I also find the KAF blog posts very helpful. You can find a lot of step-by-step picture there.

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.

ABC - Braided Lemon Bread

When I saw how pretty the Braided Lemon Bread was, I knew I had to put it on the list of ABC recipes to bake. Lemon is often associated with summer hence why this recipe became the August challenge for the ABC bakers. I love lemon however lemon curd is not my thing. It's the rich egginess that doesn't work for me. The recipe on the King Arthur Flour site offered plenty of suggestions on alternative fillings so I wasn't too worried.

If you've never made a braided bread before, I encourage you to visit the KAF blog where they have step-by-step pictures on how to do this mock braid.

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.

HCB - Sticky Toffee "Pudding"

The Sticky Toffee "Pudding" that the Heavenly Cake Bakers are baking this week, is not a pudding at all. It's a cake that originates in the UK where in many cases what we call a "cake" here, is called a "pudding" over there. But let's forget about semantics. I loved this cake. It has (Medjool) dates, lots of warm spices and caramel sauce on top. What's not to like?



A simple cake packed with flavor!



Hubby's birthday cake

Never before did it take me this long to decide what kind of cake to bake for my husband's birthday. Do I go with a recipe that I've made before or do I take this opportunity to try something completely new but risk total failure and end up having to run to the store to "buy" a cake. I'm sure you've been there :o) I decided to throw all caution to the wind and go with something completely new. I narrowed down my choices to: Dobos Torte or a Chiffon Layer Cake. I figured that either option would be a challenge; the Dobos Torte for its numerous thin layers and finicky buttercream, and the Chiffon Cake because it seems almost impossible to bake one without a tube pan. The Dobos Torte lost :o)

Here's a sneak preview of the birthday cake :o)

ABC - Maple-Pecan Medjool Date Rugelach

This month's Avid Baker's Challenge is the Eastern European pastry called Rugelach; Maple-Pecan Almond Medjool Date Rugelach to be exact. I've been intrigued by this pastry for a long time. I've never eaten it or baked it, but when I saw the recipe in Flo Braker's book, Baking for all Occasions, I knew I had to make it. This pastry consists of a lightly sweetened cream cheese/butter pastry dough, subtly accented with citrus zest, wrapped around a brown sugar/nut/Medjool date filling. I happen to love dates, especially Medjool dates, so this recipe was like music to my ears.

Coming up are some step-by-step pictures that I'd like to share with you. I hope these pictures inspire you to head into your own kitchen and bake lots of Rugelach :o)